Freedom Rides of 1961

Lewis offers an extensive description of his role in the Freedom Rides of 1961. It was in 1961 that Lewis graduated from seminary and was ordained; however, rather than becoming a minister, Lewis chose to work exclusively in the civil rights movement because he saw the movement "as an extension of the Church." Lewis traces the beginning of the Freedom Rides in Nashville to the first major confrontation in Birmingham, Alabama. Describing how the riders were arrested in Birmingham, Lewis continues the story of the journey, outlining the violent opposition the Riders faced along the way, especially in Montgomery, Alabama, and in Jackson, Mississippi. In addition, Lewis explains how support came from civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, as well as from the White House.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with John Lewis, November 20, 1973. Interview A-0073. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

After Nashville what
did you do?

JOHN LEWIS:

After Nashville?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

Did you graduate?

JOHN LEWIS:

I did in '61. But during '61 . . . .

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

Were you ordained?

JOHN LEWIS:

I was ordained, licensed and ordained. I never pastored a church or
anything like that. I guess youmay calle me a backslider, not really. I
saw the Civil Rights movement as an extension of the Church in a sense,
I guess as a real attempt to make organized religion relevant. The black
church has a strong influence on the black community by using the
church. The people in S.N.C.C. that went to organize people in some of
the small towns and rural areas many times worked through local church
groups, community organizations and the minister. When I left the
Seminary in '61, I went on the Freedom Rides and
this was my first time going into the state of Mississippi, late May,
June of '61. It was a terrible experience to come through Birmingham and
Montgomery. I'll never forget, a group of us seven blacks and three
whites from the university, colleges and
universities in Nashville. After the C.O.R.E. sponsored Freedom Rides, a
group of us left on May 17th, 1961, and took a Greyhound bus, a regular
bus, to Birmingham. Before we arrived in the city of Birmingham the bus
was stopped outside the city and a member of the Birmingham Police
Department got on the bus and said where are the
Freedom Riders. No one said anything. This member of the Police
Department literally took over the bus by asking for the tickets and he
looked at the tickets and saw that we all had tickets from Nashville,
making a stop in Birmingham, Montgomery, Jackson then on to New Orleans.
He just literally identified us as being the Freedom Riders and he was
really correct.
When we arrived at the Birmingham bus station they took us off, placed us
in protective custody and and other members of
the Birmingham Police Department and took us to the Birmingham City
Jail. It was on a Wednesday. We stayed there Wednesday. We went on a
hunger strike. We refused to eat anything,
Thursday and Friday morning about three o'clock in
the morning Conner and other members of the
Birmingham Police Department and a reporter from the Birmingham News
came up to the cell and said, we are taking you back to the college
campuses in Nashville. But they took us to the Alabama-Tennessee state
line, a little town called Alabama or Tennessee
and left us there. Then we made a call back to Nashville and spoke to
Diane Nash in the general office and told her what had happened. They
would send cars to pick us up, but in the meantime we tried to find a
house or someone in the black community. We did find a place where a
black family lived and stayed there until the car came to pick us up. We
went back to Birmingham and stayed at the bus station from Friday night,
all night, and tried to get a bus to go from
Birmingham to Montgomery. In the meantime, Attorney General Kennedy was
negotiating with the Grehound authorities, trying to get the bus moving.
All of the drivers from the Grehound Bus Company were refusing to drive
the bus. We went out several times Friday night, at 8:30, 12:00 and 8:30
Saturday morning. We finally got a bus through from Birmingham and to
Montgomery. And over the bus there was a small plane and every fifteen
miles we would see State Troopers from the state of Alabama.
It was only about a hundred miles between Birmingham to Montgomery. And
when we arrived about five or tem miles out, all signs of protection,
plane, the State Troopers. I have gone this way many, many times before
riding the bus between Troy to Montgomery, Montgomery to Birmingham,
Birmingham to Nashville to school for four years. When you got near the
station you had this eerie feeling. It must have been about ten or
ten-thirty on a Saturday and you didn't see anything and all at once
when the bus pulled up and we started out of the bus an angry mob of
about a thousand people came toward the bus. And they first started
reporters and then they started attacking us. Several of us were beaten
and just left lying in the wtreet. And there was one guy, that must have
been the chief officer for the Alabama State Troopers. This guy, I can't
think of his name but Newsweek or Time did a big story on him, and he
literally saved the day. He kept people from literally being killed. He
fired a gun to disperse the mob. We went from there to different homes
in the city of Montgomery. Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy happened to be
out of the city, they were speaking some place, and they heard about
what had happened and they came back to Montgomery and planned for a big
mass meeting in Montgomery on that Sunday. Must
have been May 22nd, but several hundred people from throughout the city
came and several national Civil Rights types came into the city. We got
into the church. The circuit judge, a judge named Walter B. Jones, had
issued an order against inter-racial groups traveling in the state of
Alabama and they had an order issued for us saying that we had violated
the injuction and cited us for contempt of court. At the same time,
state officials literally looking for us to serve the injunction. So all
of the Freedom Riders went into the choir stand and we were like members
of the choir. I had a patch on my head from the injury I received.
Several people were left and didn't make it to the church. That night
before the mass meeting started at eight o'clock
was literally just filled. An angry mob came to the church. This was the
First Baptist Church pastored by Rev. Abernathy and in the meantime, Dr.
King got on the telephone and called Bobby Kennedy and told him of the
atmosphere and the climate. The mob was coming closer to the church and
then, I think, President Kennedy federalized the National Guards in
Alabama-the only way we got away from the church that night.
Hundreds of people, not just Freedom Riders, were literally taken to
their homes in different parts of the community by
the National Guards in jeeps. Some of the people wanted to call the riot
off. We had a series of meetings Monday, Tuesday and finally on Tuesday
we decided to continue the riot. On Wednesday . . . .

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

Why did they decide to continue the riot?

JOHN LEWIS:

Well, we felt that it was important that the riot be continued and we
decided that it was important to travel through Alabam, through Selma,
Highway 80, on into Mississippi. The Freedom Ride served not only the
purpose of desegregating or dramatizing the fact that segregation still
existed in the area of public transportation, but also to arouse the
black community in the South. It was like taking the gospel of the
Civil Rights movement into different parts of the
South and it was important that it go into a state like Mississippi.
Could have been very little activity there, in terms of mass action in
some around Jackson State and during the sit-in.
At that time in Mississippi you had a situation we really didn't have
in mind but the Freedom Ride played a role
in it. You had four hundred and fifty thousand black folks of voting age
and only about twenty-two thousand registered to vote. As a result of
the Freedom Rides efforts into Mississippi in '61, later S.N.C.C. people
and C.O.R.E. people went into the Delta area,
particularly in the south-west and the McColm area and tried to organize
people around the right to vote.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

So then you went on?

JOHN LEWIS:

We arrived in Jackson at the Trailway Bus Station there and we were
arrested for refusing to move on and disorderly conduct and disturbing
the peace. When the city jail got too full, they
transferred us to the jail and from
jail we were transferred to
. I will never forget the experience going from
County jail in Jackson to Parchman, the State
Penitentiary. The jailers came to the cell and they did all of this late
at night . They had a large van truck and they
took all of the male prisoners, black and white, into this van truck. We
had been segregated in the city jail, the Hines County jail. Putting us
together in this large van truck was the first integration, I guess.
After we got off the bus, they thought of putting black and white people
together to transport them to the State 'Pen. We arrived there and one
of the guards said sing your Freedom songs now, we have niggers here who
will eat you up; sing your Freedom songs. The moment we all started
stepping off the van truck, walking to the gate through
the gate that leads to maximum security, that's where we
were being placed. We had to walk right in and you had to take off all
of your clothes. So all of us-seventy-five guys black and
white because during that period you had students, professors, ministers
coming in from all parts of the country to continue the Freedom Ride.
And we stood there for at least two hours without and clothes and I just
felt that it was an attempt to belittle and de-hu manize you. Then they
would take us in two's, two blacks and two whites- the
segregation started all over again after we got inside the
jail-to take a shower. While we were
taking a shower, there was a guard standing there with a gun pointed on
you while you showered. If you had a beard or a mustache, any
hair, you had to shave your beard off, you had to
shave your mustache off. After taking the showers in two's, you were
placed in a cell and given a Mississippi
undershirt and a pair of shorts. During our stay in Mississippi
Penitentiary we didn't have any visitors. We were able to write on
person a letter. The second day Governor came by
with some state officials. We all got out within a forty day period in
order to appeal the charges.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

You were there for how long?

JOHN LEWIS:

I was there for thirty-seven days.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

And what was the charge?

JOHN LEWIS:

Di sorderly conduct. We were fined and sentenced. You had the choice you
could pay your fine, and I think the fine was something like two hundred
dollars and the number of days must have been something like sixty-six
days, but if you got out within forty days you had a right to appeal the
case. And most of the people got out within the forty days. I left
Mississippi after I got out and came back to Jackson and took a train to
Jackson back to Nashville.